Game Concept: Dream Hunter

The world has changed since the Awakening.  

Each night, billions of people take specially-designed sedatives to put themselves to sleep.  They can rest peacefully, knowing that they are safe.  But there are some who, either by choice or by circumstance, do not take any sedatives.  Such people become Conduits--channels through which nightmarish creatures can leak through from the dream world into our own.

Having accidentally orphaned yourself during the Awakening, you have vowed to capture or destroy all the dream creatures that slip through.

The world has changed since the Awakening.  It has given you a purpose.


Dream Hunter is a solitaire game of investigation and battle as you hunt down the creatures released from others' dreams.  Follow the clues, then capture or destroy the dream before it turns the world into a nightmare.

Likely card-based, with a small to medium-sized board.

Game Concept: The Fall

This has been a frustratingly busy semester for me.  I'm taking several intensive courses that require a great deal of reading and thoughtful discussion of the texts.  My wife's writing/editing job ebbs and flows throughout the year and is currently at an ebb, so I've had to put in more hours at my work to make up the difference.  Plus, my wife is taking an insane number of advanced Greek and Latin classes, which keep her busy busy busy, leaving me to shoulder much of the daily house chores--dishes, cooking, laundry, trash, etc.  I don't mind in the slightest, but all this means that I rarely have a confluence of both time and the energy for creative projects.

The TESS rules and module are unlikely to be ready before the 2013 Solitaire PnP Design Contest deadline.  I'm okay with that.  It's a big game that will need a lot of testing to make sure that the core mechanics work, and then even more testing to find a good balance.  If it needs time to percolate, all the better for the game.

This has given me a lot of time to ponder about other concepts I have been keeping in my back pocket.  One of them is The Fall.  This began as a concept for a video game JRPG several years ago--the main character goes on a quest, and collects new friends and allies and new equipment and abilities along the way.  I recently sketched out some ideas in my head that MIGHT allow this game to see daylight as a tabletop game.


THEME

The main character is climbing across a huge chasm when his line snaps and he plummets deep into the earth.  Instead of splattering onto rock or nosediving into lava, however, he slips through a magic mortal that transports him into a giant underground world.  He gets entangled in the political intrigue of two warring nations when it is discovered that he is entirely immune to all forms of magic.  To get back home, he must join with one of these enchanted nations, lead a team into enemy territory, and gather the components needed for the queen to build him a machine to take him to the surface.


CHARACTERS

--A climbing and spelunking enthusiast from our modern world who, for whatever reason, is completely immune to magic.

--An enchantress/queen struggling to protect her nation from invasion.

--A cunning sorceress/queen with a thirst for destruction.

--A young girl with an incredible talent for sorcery.

--A warrior/scholar devoted to protecting the young girl.

--An exiled skreeling (sort of a goblin-like creature) looking for new friends and a new home.

--A mechanical man with a burning desire to be useful.

--An armored cave bear on a quest to avenge her slain cubs.


MECHANICS

This is where much of my thoughts have been these last few days.  I recall playing Final Fantasy X years ago and admiring a great many things about the game's design.  One neat thing that the game did was give each hero a unique special move with a powerful effect, with each move requiring the player to perform a different mini-game.  With one character, you had to rotate the thumbstick as many times as possible within a short time limit.  With another, you had to pause a slider within a small area as it moved back and forth.  With yet another, you had to play a game of slots and try to get three of a kind for maximum effect.

This got me to thinking--what if each character in The Fall had a unique battle mechanic?  Once the player has a full party, he or she can select the three characters (or the three mini-games) he or she enjoys the most and bring them into the combat situations.  One character might use a Yahtzee-style dice mechanic.  One might require the player to flip a coin a number of times.  One may use the strike/maneuver poker card mechanic from my own Wings of Lightning.  Still another may use a dexterity mechanic; designer Jessey Wright would like that.  The idea would be to use components that a typical gamer can be expected to have around the house to create quick yet interesting mini-challenges for each character's combat abilities.

To simulate the idea of random encounters, I would provide the player with a map showing the number of spaces between the different key locations.  Each time the player moves the party to a new space, he or she must roll on a chart to see if he or she has an encounter, and if so, with what.

The heroes and all enemies they face would be given various stats, include Speed ratings.  The player would activate each combatant's abilities in order from highest Speed to lowest.  Particularly fast characters may get two or even three Speeds, indicating that they are able to attack multiple times in a round.  For example, a character may have a rating of 8 and 3.  This means that the character would attack before anyone else with a Speed rating lower than 8, and then again after everyone with a Speed rating higher than 3.

Enemies could be programmed with different behaviors to provide the player with interesting tactical choices.  Some of them might target the character with the lowest health.  Others would attack the character that most recently performed an attack.  Still others would be have a list of the characters and would attack starting from the top of the list, according to which characters were in combat.  And others would randomize their attacks with only a small amount of predictability.  This would keep the player on his or her toes and provide him or her with interesting decisions about when to attack, when to heal, when to defend, et cetera.



I have no idea when I'll be able to work on this game, but I wanted to get my thoughts on paper.  I have to graduate eventually, and when I do, you can bet that I'll be putting my unchained brain power into all sorts of creative endeavors like this!

Brainstorming for the 2013 Solitaire Print and Play Contest

This year's solitaire game design contest has begun, which means I have a few short weeks to prepare and submit a game.  I was originally planning on submitting Horns of Thunder, the sequel to my well-received solitaire story game Wings of Lightning.  However, I've had a lot of thoughts banging around in my head about how to integrate story and game mechanics, and wanted to put it all on paper.  This post is a massive brainstorm, and will subsequently be long and somewhat incoherent.  However, it may be useful for some people to see a designer's mind at work.  Or this will just be really boring--I've no idea.

• I'm really intrigued by the idea of using a customizable deck of cards to work through a gamebook.  So there might be two to four pre-crafted decks for players who just want to dive in, or the player could build his or her own deck.
• To keep the decks roughly thematically appropriate, I'd probably borrow the idea of Influence from Android: Netrunner.  The players would have a particular Identity or Persona that have a particular set of cards associated with them that they can include at no cost.  However, all cards would be marked with an Influence cost, and each Persona could only include out-of-character cards up to their Influence limit.
• For example, the Human character could only include a limited number of cards from the Cyborg deck.  
• One of the reasons this idea appeals to me is that I can release expansions--new stories to overcome, new Personas, new cards for the different Personas, etc., all within the same rules system.  Heck, I'd be more than willing to open the system up to all users, so that they can generate their own stories, Personas, and cards!  
• The catch is that I have to get the system right.  Once it's released, it will be much more difficult to go back and fix any problems inherent in the rules set.
• So let's think about the AI.  What sort of challenges will the player have to overcome, and how will the game react to the player's decisions?
• I like to approach these sort of problems from a thematic perspective.  So I'll start with a case study.  
• Say the player is traversing some rocky terrain and stumbles across a goblin campsite.  The goblins haven't noticed her, yet, but she's not confident that she can skirt around them.  She has to go through them.
• What are her options?
• She could fight them, risking her life and probably taking some wounds
• She could frighten them, causing them to scatter.
• She could set up a distraction, and hope they abandon the camp to investigate long enough for her to sneak past.
• She could reveal herself and talk to them, hoping to persuade them to let her pass.
• Could I just keyword the encounters?  So with the example above, the player must discard an appropriate number of Fight, or Frighten, or Distract, or Talk cards to progress?
• That's stupid; that's basically just asking whether the player has the right key or not, which does not make for compelling gameplay.  I want the player to have to make difficult decisions.
• What if the encounters didn't spell out how to overcome them?  It could be up to the player to decide how to use the cards at his or her disposal.  So a card might say, "Distract +3."  The player would use it, hoping that a distraction would work on the encounter.  He or she would then look at the current paragraph number, add three, and consult that paragraph.  So, if he or she was at Paragraph 24, he or she would proceed to Paragraph 27.  If it said "Distraction Successful," the card worked.
• That doesn't work, either.  First of all, that would require a massive amount of work on my part just to create a small story.  I'd have to account for half a dozen or more permutations for each encounter.  That's a lot more writing for a small gain.  Plus, he player would have little to no basis for his or her decision.  What if the player decided to Frighten the goblins, but it failed?  How would the player no it was going to fail?  What hints could the system give that one option was better than another?  What sort of consequences would there be for failure?
• No, that's way too much work for me and not enough fun decision-making for the player.  I'll have to find another solution.
• On top of which, I'm not sure I want the story to consist of numbered sections.  Would it be possible to have a slightly more linear story, with random encounters scattered throughout?  How would that look?
• So the player is going along, reading the story, and he or she hits a Random Encounter.  He or she then rolls on a chart based on his or her location, and perhaps some other factors adjust the die roll.  The chart then tells the player what sort of encounter he or she must face.  He or she deals with it, suffers some consequences, gains some bonuses, and proceeds with the story.  
• That could theoretically work.  In fact, I like the idea that the story would have a general overall shape, but with little crests and valleys and twists that are with each play through.  I could even have some branching paths that would only be accessible based on particular random encounters happening at particular points in the story.  That could be fun.
• Okay, so I've got a basic story structure.  But how do random encounters actually work?  What information is given to the player when they hit a random encounter?  And will I be able to have encounters that are not purely combat-based, so that players can work through the story in a number of different ways that don't involve the murderation of dozens of animals and sentient beings?
• Let's say that the player rolls an encounter.  That encounter might have several different stats indicating how one MIGHT overcome it, and the player can use his or her cards to match or beat one of those stats.  
• So the goblin encampment would have Fight 15, Frighten 20, Distract 9, and Talk 12.  The player would have to muster up enough Fight, Frighten, Distract, or Talk cards to overcome one of those options.  Otherwise, the encounter gives a certain consequence.
• That's still a bit too much like needing the right set of keys to get through the door.  I don't like the fact that the player knows EXACTLY what he or she needs to beat the encounter.
• Is there some way to "hide" the exact numbers that the player will need to overcome?  That way I could merely hint at what the player needs, but he or she would be uncertain about whether his or her Lighting Strike and Dual Wield Daggers (Fight 9 and Fight 6, respectively) would be enough to get through the goblins.
• I know!  I could randomize the stats.  So instead of "Fight 15, Frighten 20," etc., the player would see "Fight 2d6 + 6, Frighten d12 + 4, Distract d6 + 1, Talk 2d6 - 2."  The player would assemble his or her response to the encounter, THEN roll to see if he or she defeats it.  That adds a nice push-your-luck element that I think could really work.
• The best part is, sometimes the player will KNOW that the dice cannot possible roll high enough to defeat his or her response, but sometimes the player will be forced to gamble on a low number in order to conserve resources.
• Plus, I could have the story branch out in different ways, depending on how the player overcame the random encounter.
• Yes, I like this a lot!  It's potentially very compelling, and can reward players for progressing through the game in multiple ways.  Replayability is always good for a solitaire game, especially one with a customizable component like the player's deck.
• Now to think about theme....
• This system could obviously translate very well to a fantasy theme.  The player could be a mage, a soldier, a noble, or a merchant, with different strengths and weaknesses against different kinds of encounters.
• The problem with fantasy is not only that it's been done a lot, but it's been done WELL a lot.  That's a lot of pressure to compete!
• I'm not sure I'm interested in a modern thriller or spy story, but it could work.  Something to keep in mind.
• Sci fi would be fun, though.  I love a good sci fi story.  And this system could let the player play in the universe in fun ways.  A human, a cyborg, an uplifted animal, and a robot would all interact with the encounters in different ways.  The robot might be prone to hacking and electronic warfare, while the cyborg uses brute strength and enhanced speed to bring down his or her enemies.  The human is relatively weak and fragile, but overcomes many different types of obstacles through creativity and ingenuity.  The uplift has certain social obstacles and advantages, as an animal living in a world designed for humans, but is a master of stealth and surprise.
• Yes, I like this a lot!  I think I'll go with it.
• Now, let's consider what a deck actually looks like.
• I like the idea of smaller decks.  The players shouldn't need a 60-card monstrosity to get through a story.  Let's say a 30-card minimum deck.  Probably a maximum of 3 copies of any given card.  That makes printing easier--my card sheets are 3x3, so I can put three copies of three unique cards per sheet.
• I also like the idea of giving the player actions to take outside of what is explicitly written on the cards.  So while the Human player might have a card that he or she can discard to draw three additional cards, or to search his or her deck for a particular card, all Personas will have the option to, say, discard a card to draw a card.
• I don't think I want the player to have to deal with his or her own stats, not even Health or Oxygen or anything like that.  Everything he or she needs should be in the deck or in the encounter tables.  It's just simpler that way.  So what sort of punishment can the AI dish out?
• Perhaps running out of cards in the deck means death?  No, that would reward players for playing huge, bulky, cumbersome, extremely random decks.  I think I'll allow the player to shuffle his or her discard pile into a new deck when the deck runs out.
• Hand size, then, could be the player's Life.  Take damage, discard a card.  Run out of cards in hand, and you're dead.
• The problem with that idea is that a player could get into a death spiral.  He or she doesn't have enough cards to overcome a particular encounter, so he or she takes damage, so he or she has fewer cards to deal with the next encounter....  So that doesn't quite work, either.
• What about removing cards from the game permanently?  Take damage, exile the top card of your deck.  That card is gone forever; I don't care if it's a really strong card, you don't get to use it this game.  Hm... maybe.  I don't like the fact that it won't always FEEL like damage.  "Oh, I don't really care about that card, so that encounter wasn't very punishing at all."
• Maybe a mixture of those ideas?  Some encounters force you to discard cards from your hand if you fail, which limits your options.  Some of them force you to exile cards from your deck, which CAN limit your options.  And some of them could put a cap on your hand limit, so you don't necessarily have to discard cards, but now you can only ever hold 4 cards in your hand instead of 5.  So when you draw cards, you'll occasionally be forced to discard cards.
• I also think it's important to keep the player from just digging through the deck for the exact cards he or she needs for every encounter.  So there should be a penalty for having to shuffle your discard pile to create a new deck.  Perhaps, if you run out of cards in your deck, you shuffle your discard pile into a new deck, then exile the top two cards?  So each time you have to reshuffle, you have fewer and fewer cards left in your deck.  Yes, that should work.  It's not too punishing initially, but if the player abuses that strategy, he or she will find him or herself without many options.
• Okay, I'm really liking this idea.  Time to go brainstorm some cards, and to sketch out an outline for the first story!

The First Planet

It's been a while since I posted on this blog, which is a little sad, since I've actually been very active in the board game community.

Here's a preview of a game that I've recently started working on:

The First Planet

            Life did not start on Earth.

            Uncounted millennia ago, the Earth was seeded with genetic coding.  Life slowly evolved, changing form as the Earth developed.  The land solidified, and creatures began to walk, slither, and fly across it as the oceans teemed with life.

            One species, a weak, slow, hairless species, learned to survive by traveling in packs and outsmarting their predators.  Their wits let them survive, and eventually, thrive.  They tamed the wilds to their liking, spread across the planet, and became the dominant species of the planet.  And when the Earth grew too small for them, they looked up to the sky. 

            The Moon was colonized, then Mars, then the ring of asteroids spinning around the sun.  That’s when they discovered the Structure.

            Nestled into a hunk of rock in the asteroid belt, the Structure had been built before humans learned to sharpen rocks into weapons.  It was designed to survive the cold, harsh destruction of space.  Half of it was exposed, a perfect half-sphere, while the other half was buried in the rock.

            While the half-sphere portion of the structure was surprising when discovered, it was the inner part of the structure that caused shock and awe through the human society.  Some described it as like a beehive; others said it was more akin to a nautilus shell.  It was clearly designed by something with great skill and craftsmanship, and it was not of human origin.

            Other clues were found later, but the Structure was the first, and in many ways the most important.  Life had existed elsewhere in the universe long before it developed on Earth.

            So humanity set out to find that life.  They set out in search of the First Planet.

This doesn't actually reflect my views on creation or anything, but the concept is interesting and should make for some fun gameplay.

The Sewer Rats

I want to put some thoughts to paper (figuratively speaking), but don't want a lot of people reading them as of yet.  This idea is still quit undeveloped and needs to simmer, but writing about it well help me gel the concept.

I plan on writing a role-playing game.  It may just end up being a module for a game system that already exists (I hear that the GURPS system is pretty versatile), but I kind of like the idea of designing my own system specifically for this setting.

In the not-too-distant future, the world's oil supply suddenly and rapidly dwindled to nothing.  The infrastructure of the United States, so dependent on gasoline, crumbled.  Power outages swept across the country as power stations ran out of the coal, gas, or oil necessary to keep them going.  The economy collapsed, and the nation's leaders, huddled in their underground bunkers powered by hydroelectricity, cowered and waited for the country to dissolve.

Then came the Corporation.  It approached the United States' panicked legislators with a new, renewable energy source.  While not environmentally friendly, it could rapidly replace oil as a source of fuel, restoring the country as the dominant nation of the world.  All the Corporation asked in return was control.

And control it received.

No longer governed by the people, no longer protected by the Constitution, the United States became the Incorporated States.  The Corporation dissolved all American businesses and established a communist totalitarian state.  All citizens were required to attend Corporate schools, work in Corporate jobs.  In return, the Corporation restored energy to the nation.  It provided jobs, housing, food, clean water.  Everything a citizen could ask for.

All for the price of freedom.

Thirty years later, you are a member of the resistance.  You live off the grid, underground, or in abandoned buildings.  You do what you need to do to survive.  And you fight and hinder the Corporation in any way you can.

You are a Sewer Rat.

That's the basic backstory.  I may, later, change the way that the Corporation came to power, but I like this one because it makes some sense, and this new energy source could cause it to be dark, rainy, and unpleasant all the time, which would fit the pseudo-post-apocalyptic mood.

The basic idea of the game is that the players take on the roles of Sewer Rats.  They try to take down the Corporation using any means necessary--stealing from them, subverting employees, whatever they can do, they'll do it.  And while their cause, it is just, they also have to eat occasionally.  Which will often mean that they must steal from the very citizens they are trying to free.  Moral dilemmas galore.

Game Concept: Enki-Des

I didn't set out to come up with a concept for a game.  Admittedly, I knew it was a possibility, but it was not the goal.  My intention was to have a nice thought-exercise in creating a mythology.

So here is what I came up with:

The Ukri are a people constantly at war.  They developed along the western edge of Baltien, but despite ready access to the ocean's vast resources, did not develop sailing techniques for centuries.  Forced to eek out a living without being able to fish on a large scale, they eventually rejected small-scale pearl diving and fishing in favor of raiding their wealthier neighbors to the east.  They became a very warlike people, and their mythology reflects this.

The Ukri believe that death brings them to the Enki-des, or Soul Gates.  The Enki-des is a series of seven gates, and the Ukri spend their lives preparing for the seven trials they must face in order to pass through the Enki-des to reach Furrma, or Paradise.

The first six trials are combative.  A deceased Ukri must battle and defeat a powerful guardian to pass through the first Enki-des, then the second, and so on until the last.  The final trial is not a trial by combat, however.  Instead, the Ukri must present his or her Enko-ori, or essence pearl, to the Enki-Rochimga, roughly translated as Guardian of the Soul, who is usually depicted as a giant white bear standing upright on two legs.  If they are able to present their Enko-ori to Enki-Rochimga, the Ukri are permitted into Furrma.  Obtaining these Enko-ori is critical to the Ukri--without it, their battles through the first six Enki-Des will be for naught, and Enki-Rochimga will devour them.

There are two ways to obtain one's Enko-ori.  It may be obtained in life if one lives a long, honorable life.  In such cases, one's Bilchidru, a sort of observing spirit, will grant one his or her Enko-ori immediately after death.

For those who do not live long enough or honorably enough to be granted an Enko-ori freely, there is still hope.  They must search the Enki-des for their Enko-ori.  This search may take a very long time, and they will be fighting the guardians of the Enki-des the whole time.  

Subsequently, the Ukri prepare their entire lives to fight.  From the time they can walk, they are told to run.  From the time they can lift a stick, they are shown how to use a spear.  They are trained to fight, and they do so exceptionally well.

Interestingly, they are not bloodthirsty warriors, like many of the warrior nations that developed in Baltien.  This is likely because of their quest to obtain their Enko-ori by living a long and honorable life.  While they are willing to fight and raid as a way of life, they do battle as bloodlessly as possible, seeking to leave their opponents alive, but incapacitated.

So, the game concept is pretty straightforward.  It's a solitaire game, wherein the player takes on the role of a deceased Ukri warrior, and must battle his or her way through six unique guardians.  After defeating a guardian but before advancing to the next stage, the player may search the area for his or her Enko-ori.  If he or she does, they must battle the guardian again, regardless of whether or not they are successful in finding their essence pearl.  Alternatively, their may be a way to search the area while doing battle, but the player will be distracted and thus take damage from the guardian.  I haven't worked out how this might work mechanically, yet.

If the player is able to reach the final gate of the Enki-des and present his or her Enko-ori to Enki-Rochimga, he or she wins.  Otherwise, he or she loses.